The Playa as Plaza: How a temporary desert utopia can inform how we think about cities.

Last week 68,000 people traveled to a desert in Nevada to build a city. Within a few weeks, there will be no remains of the city: Every structure, tent, bicycle, glow stick, and piece of trash will be gone.

As a first time visitor, I initially found Burning Man to be like the SimCity of social experimentation. Everyone is a player, there are few rules, and there is always the chance that a storm will arrive to destroy what you’ve built. Yet, after a week there, I discovered that it’s a “real” city, not only a simulation of what urban life could be like.

Burning Man started as an anti-government, anti-capitalist community, a Temporary Autonomous Zone, a “festal uprising of rebels who temporarily liberate an area from state control and market logic” (Kozinets). Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, Burning Man has become a real city?—?Black Rock City, Nevada?—?with a real governing organization and real city problems and opportunities. The only reason I hesitate to classify Black Rock City as a “City” is because of its impermanence ?. Nonetheless, the sense of place and community at Burning Man is undeniable. I'd argue that it has more authenticity than many parts of Reno or Las Vegas.

Some academics and journalists have written of Black Rock City’s affinity with New Urbanism?—?picture Mad Max set in Seaside, Florida. Others have compared to a number of other places and ideologies:....Continue Reading

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